The arrival in New South Wales and Tasmania of thousands of convicts – almost all of them men – accompanied by armed soldiers, presented many problems for the Indigenous peoples (Broome 1994). One was the spread of a variety of diseases prevalent among the European poor but hitherto quite unknown to the Indigenous. Smallpox was widespread, and venereal disease and pneumonia became so very quickly (J. Campbell 2002). The same diseases also struck Islanders further away as missionaries, traders and labour recruiters began to settle from the 1840s. The huge gender discrepancy of the convict settlers added to the problem. Indigenous men did not welcome the arrival of numerous rivals and many conflicts were traceable to fights over women. Many of the male settlers were former convicts, sealers and whalers and other unattached wanderers. Some set up relationships with Indigenous people, while others attacked, raped and killed them.

Official restraint was inoperable in parts of Tasmania for years and led to a rapid decline in the already small Indigenous population. A similar male preponderance existed elsewhere. Social and legal controls were limited, especially in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, not occupied until later. Attempts to ‘settle’ the Aborigines were made, but were ineffective until small towns and official camps were established in remote locations, to which some Aborigines attached themselves and their families, despite the hostility of the migrant newcomers.

The British governors adopted the principle of terra nullius or nobody's land, which allowed them to develop agriculture and settlements regardless of prior Indigenous usage (Maddock 1983). This was legally enforced by the principle that all land was vested in the Crown, which could hold it, lease it or sell it. The meaning of the Latin term became hotly debated during the ‘history wars’ of the 1990s (S. Macintyre and Clark 2003; Windschuttle 2004). The meaning was clear at least as early as the 1830s. Uncultivated land belonged to nobody, a principle also being applied in Britain to village commons and highland pastures. Unfamiliar with domestic animals other42 than dogs, the local Indigenous saw cattle and sheep as welcome sources of food. Their punishments echoed those by British landlords, who had enclosed commons for their own profitable use (Griffin 2014). These prohibited hunting their animals, birds and fish under the Game Laws, a frequent cause of transportation.